30th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 2003
FIVE STORY IDEAS ON ABORTION

As we begin to lose the older physicians who witnessed the effects of illegal abortion on women's lives and health, we lose an important part of our history.  Preserving their legacy is essential to ensuring the continuation of the practice of safe, legal, and accessible abortion services.

"When people ask me if I was ever worried about the abortions I had done, I say no. The ones that haunt me are the ones that I didn't do."
-Dr. Jane Hodgson

"Before Roe v. Wade, I had no guilt feelings about what I was doing.  I was proud of being able to help the women I was taking care of."
-Dr. Tom Allen

"I think it is important for us to hear these stories.  It is important for us to teach these young people what is was like before Roe v. Wade, so that we will never again go back to those days ... We have to let young women and men know the tragedy of illegal abortion."
-Dr. Mildred Hanson

A physician's decision regarding whether to provide abortions has become increasingly complex in the three decades since Roe v. Wade unambiguously gave women in the United States the freedom to decide when and under what circumstances to bear children.  Despite the Supreme Court ruling, developments in Congress, the state legislatures, the medical profession, and the health care industry have made it clear that choice is restricted and still under threat.

Many physicians who practiced medicine before 1973 made the decision to provide abortions because they witnessed women die of botched and self-induced abortions.  For them, abortion provision is a public health necessity.  For younger physicians, in whose professional lifetime abortion has always been legal, to become an abortion provider is often considered a political decision.  This is a result, in part, of the politicization of abortion specifically, and reproductive healthcare generally.  These developments have been accompanied by an increase in harassment and deadly violence against abortion providers, marginalizing them within the medical profession and isolating them in their communities.  As a result, fewer younger physicians are becoming providers.

As the preeminent representative of pro-choice physicians in the U.S., Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health^® have undertaken to document the voices of the brave men and women who provided this essential reproductive health service prior to 1973, and to make their experiences a permanent part of our history.  The Voices of Choice project documents the horrors of illegal abortion and provides a way to understand a time when health care providers took tremendous personal and professional risks to provide women with the abortion services they needed.  Voices of Choice brings us the past so that we may better understand the present and, more importantly, prepare for the future.

For access to "Voices of Choice" interviews or for more information, please contact:

Erica Pelletreau, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health^®, (646) 366-1890 ext. 13.

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